TRENDS of NAVAL POWER of 2 SUPERPOWERS 30 OCT 2013

TRENDS of NAVAL POWER of 2 SUPERPOWERS & what it indicates. China is aggressively building up a modern long-range navy, while the U.S. due to economic problems is reducing theirs. Further China has publicly said they intend to deny much of the western Pacific to Amer. naval power!! This post will examine this development from the vantage pt. of not only America, but Christians in America, which will give us a larger perspective. Let’s begin w/ a Christ-like frame of reference.

A GODLY FRAME OF REFERENCE TO THIS SUPERPOWER NAVAL COMPETITION. Even today, when we are facing a global Satanic New World Order, people spend time debating what form of govt. works best, libertarian, socialist, federalist, democracy, etc. Their debates are interesting but moot & not germane to the crisis we face. Within that crisis, the followers of Christ ask the same question, what kind of govt. should we work to have. Some simply say it doesn’t matter as all govt.s will fail, or because we will soon be raptured. One of the rather unique things about Bible believers (whether Jewish or Christian) which other religions don’t have is the concept that God works in history & that history can show us things about God. In ancient Israel, they were stuck between all the various superpowers of the anc. world, for instance, if Assyria & Egypt fought, Israel was caught in the middle. God’s people didn’t have large standing armies, in general, because that was a lack of faith. Relative to their pagan neighbors, Israel tended to make decisions based on faith not fear. The story of Deborah reveals that Israel, without a standing army, was protected by the Hand of God in battle. Fast forwarding to the 1600’s, the Puritans (incl. the Pilgrim Puritans whose Mayflower Compact was a covenant w/ God, like OT times) decided to create a Theocratic govt. Basically, they took worldly forms of government, like a governor & a Christian army and placed them under guidance of the church. The Puritan experiment in creating the Kingdom of God in the New World failed in about 60 yrs. –a similar experiment in Iran the last 3 decades under the rule of the mullahs is also failing…many Iranians have quietly rejected Islam, & some are miraculously giving their lives to Christ. The Amish approach (which has 400 yrs. of success) was to say, there will always be secular people & secular govts. for them. Rather than subject the world to God’s ways (which God says is to be voluntary), we simply accept that the World will have its govt. & that we will be contained as a micro-govt. within the larger one. This kind of multijurisdictional, small w/in the large actually happens often in history. For instance, in Nepal the tiny Kingdom of Mustang was a kingdom w/in a kingdom (when I lived there). As followers of Christ, we recognize that we are spectators in the Superpower struggles, yet like anc. Israel, we are going to have to survive w/in the context of these superpower conflicts!

Naval power has several important features to it. First, the process of designing, building, testing, evaluating, & debugging a new warship takes years; a warship is not built quickly. Of the different branches, the navy is most dependent upon time to prepare & many other factors involved in building complex technological ships. Today’s average Amer. combat ship costs $2.1 billion. An example of lack of prep time is Nazi Germany’s Navy which could not prepare fast enough, or their subs might have won. They also were unable to finish their aircraft carrier & French warships captured unfinished. Second, Naval power is used to 1. Project power at a distance, 2. Protect merchant shipping, 3. Engage in combat, such as amphibious operations. After independence, the U.S. repeatedly learned these things the hard way, so they built a strong navy. (Time precludes giving some interesting examples of the learning process like France seizing hundreds of Amer. merchant ships when the Fr. Revolution took place.)

Amer.’s largest fleet is the West Pacific 7th fleet with 70 ships & about 250 aircraft. The Navy says it is at least 20 ships short for its worldwide mission, & the 6th fleet in the Med. Sea no longer exists as a fleet. Our fleet every year gets smaller. Further, the Obama admin., doing selective hearing, wrote in their QDR that China’s new military power is “constructive”!! Our ally Japan has the world’s 4th largest fleet, & a good one. They are scared about China’s growing naval power & are increasing their sub production. Australia on the other hand has decided to do military cooperation like joint military maneuvers w/ China. And the entire British fleet is now only 40 warships, w/ for instance, only 6 destroyers.

Chinese leaders are in strategic competition w/ the U.S. & have created a new generation of weapons to neutralize Amer.’s best weapons. They have the DF-21 antiship ballistic missile w/ perhaps a 1,200 mile range to destroy Amer. aircraft carriers. Amer. does not even have such a thing (ASBM) in their arsenal. They’ve designed missiles to take out satellites & missiles to take out AWACS. They have over 100 missile boats, which is part of a typical Chinese tactic to overwhelm their enemy when they attack. They will test the Amer. fleet all at once w/ multiple attacks by large no.s. Our nuclear subs were so much more powerful than their little diesels, that it used to be that one of our nucl. subs would have wiped out vast numbers of ambushing Chinese subs. But they have upgraded to nuclear subs (although w/ great problems), and they have launched their own aircraft carrier (named Linoning). The only uses for an aircraft carrier is for force projection, helping amphibious assaults on other countries, & combat far from China. They have upgraded their amphibious abilities. Which brings us to China’s aggressive bullying in the South China Sea w/ their naval power. They have attacked ships of other nations, and there are 11 spots in the So. China Sea where they have had conflicts. Basically they claim all the islands from the Vietnam mainland to the Phil. main islands. Why do they need the entire So. China Sea??…obviously for only one reason…to protect their ports for naval expeditions/invasions. Nearby Hainen Island has China’s sub pens for their missile-carrying subs. They have 62 subs (a qty. on par w/ the U.S. but of course not on par quality-wise.) Amer.’s naval power is decreasing, China’s increasing while the Obama admin. sees China as a friend. China’s expensive build-up of weapons is obviously designed to compete w/ America. (It seems the one Constitutional job the Federal govt. has to protect us, is least important as they busy themselves w/ countless un-Constitutional activities!!) When will China use their new naval power designed to fight Amer. against the U.S.??